Authoritative Predictions for 2013

Two of the bloggers from ExpertTextperts, Brett and Casey, return with another guest post.

Every new year brings with it the promise of hope and the apprehension of uncertainty, and in the interest of dispelling both we set out to forecast exactly what 2013 will offer Mormondon and the bloggernacle. Our methodology included rigorous logic, a deep grasp of human nature and, we hope, a measure of the spirit of prophecy.* We now present our predictions as a public service.

*the spirit of prophecy disclaims any responsibility for the following

-Pantsgate will be reprised several times over as Mormon feminists continue to encroach on the sacred sphere of church clothing and established gender norms. Spinoffs such as Sneakergate, ColoredShirtgate, and BoloTiegate will prove less successful.

-A popular musician will admit in a newspaper interview that he or she grew up Mormon, but doesn’t practice any more because “I just don’t believe a lot of it, you know?” Someone will write a BCC post admitting that they still like the musician; soon after Meridian Magazine will publish a series of article exploring latter-day apostasy, noting that “some in the LDS community have publicly supported apostates, but believing saints will not be fooled by their false gospel.”

-President Monson, hoping to make the First Presidency feel more approachable, will set up a section of LDS.org where members can create and sign petitions, with the promise that any petition that gets over a certain amount of signatures in a week will get a personal response from the prophet himself. Four days later, three hundred and seventy-eight stakes will have petitioned to secede from the Church.

-Following the success of 17 Miracles, director T. C. Christensen will promise a follow-up that will, in his words, “Blow your minds. We’re talking double the miracles.” However, 34 Miracles is panned as predictable and saccharine, and ends up languishing in obscurity except for a few accidental purchases around Christmastime every year.

-The Church will finally finish its Broadway answer to The Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon: But For Real will feature a cast of current and past members of BYU’s Young Ambassadors led by Kirby Heybourne (The Singles Ward, The RM, All those annoying Target commercials).

-A prominent libertarian LDS blogger will publish a series of posts discussing with some skepticism whether liberal Mormonism is theologically valid. Other Mormon blogs large and small will join debate and amidst the discussion remarkable breakthroughs will be made, allowing for final reconciliation between all parties. The larger blogs will merge into a single entity, Times of Faith Promoting Feminist Millennial Consent. There will be no flame wars, and they will have all their posts in common. This will last for three months, but in the fourth month a small part of the bloggernacle will begin to become prideful and persecute the rest, eventually leading to a bitter and total collapse of TFPFMC.

-Hoping to dispel the belief that Church policy is rigid and unwavering, the First Presidency will exhort members to pray in their wards and in their families to help them decide which two swear words to make permissible.

-Mormon Stories will score an enormous coup when President Monson agrees to appear on the podcast. Unfortunately prior commitments will force Monson to cut the interview short midway through part 3, just as John Dehlin is about to finish phrasing his first question.

-A member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles will pass away, and despite over 50 signatures our petition to have Marlin K Jensen appointed next will be ignored.

-The Church Curriculum Department will introduce a radically new third-hour lesson manual, “Teachings For Our States.” Though many of the core doctrines will be presented the same in all manuals, the Department will try to vary the content of each according to the teaching style of its intended area of use. When California, for instance, receives the lesson “Ye Cannot Serve God and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,” Idaho gets, “Cain and Bigfoot: It’s Basically Doctrine.” Meanwhile, the Utah manual will feature “My Way is Not Your Way,” a lesson about how men wear pants and women wear dresses.

-Someone will publish a surprisingly in-depth exploration of LDS history and theology entirely with gifs.

-Early support will muster for 2016 presidential hopeful Matt Rimley, an LDS politician who looks suspiciously like Mitt Romney with a fake mustache.

-To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the original, a gritty reimagining of The Book of Mormon Movie entitled The Book of Mormon Movie: Blood and Sand will receive a limited theatrical release. Certain extra-canonical additions by the filmmakers (including the twenty-minute Hostel-inspired “Laman and Lemuel’s Savagery to Nephi and Sam”) will prompt an official Church response stating, “While the filmmakers were well within their rights to present our sacred history in such a manner, the First Presidency would like to remind members of the Church that if they want bloody representations of barbaric cruelty, they would do better to stick to the approved scriptural canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

-A clean-cut, honest, and earnest Mormon named Hyrum will have an improbable run of success on a primetime reality show. America will be evenly divided as the show’s finale pits Hyrum against Lucas, a hard-partying, binge-drinking ex-Mormon whose backstabbing and conniving saw him to the finals and turned him into the latest over-the-top reality character America loves to hate. Someone will write a BCC post admitting a preference for Lucas; soon after Meridian Magazine will publish a series of articles exploring the showdown as an allegory for the end times, noting that “some in the LDS community have publicly supported apostates, but believing saints will not be fooled by the false gospel of Lucas.”

Comments

I’m actually very surprised that no one has done a more violent send-up of parts of the Book of Mormon yet. Where is our Mormon Eli Roth? For anyone who doubts the level of members’ tolerance for violence vs. sex, watch the documentary “Cleanflix”.

There’s almost too much win here to adequately comment on. I’ll try anyway, though, by way of addition:

The Constitution will FINALLY be officially canonized, followed by several scholarly articles concerning the Mormon Church’s difficulties translating the US Constitution into Q’eqchi’, Rarotongan, Neomelanesian, and Swahili. The canonization process hits a snag, however, with the introduction of 14 new amendments to the Constitution regarding gun and missile ownership, with the eventual solution being to declare US Congress a “quasi-quorum” with “partial-revelatory authority.” Mormon Libertarian’s brains all simultaneously explode from the dissonance.

Continuing #4…This will cause ripples throughout the Evangelical community, as the Southern Baptist Convention warns believers not to be fooled by the Mormon Constitution. Mormons will be baffled by this, pointing out that our constitution even MORE liberty-centric than the traditional one, and that if Baptists truly accepted liberty then they would accept our constitution.

Indeed, the precursor of the revelation that will follow this year, the preparer of things to come. Is there an app out there that integrates words and concepts from the Constitution into footnotes and topical guides? Because that seems like the natural thing to do.

British Mormons become annoyed when it is announced that the two newly approved swear words are to be ‘Damn’ and ‘Hell’. Later that year, new chapter headings are written which attempt to legitimize the new words in LDS discourse. Examples include: ‘Lehi’s sons return to Jerusalem to obtain the plates of brass— That damn-rotten Laban refuses to give the plates’ and ‘Sariah tells Lehi to go to hell—Both rejoice over the return of their sons’.

In order to counteract the evil and insidious forces of The World upon the youth of the church, the YW leadership in the Provo 249th ward plans a modesty fashion show featuring all the different ways a full-body HazMat suit can be made to look flattering and stylish.

Glenn Beck discovers one of the books of scripture promised in 2 Nephi: it tells the story of another lost tribe of Israel that specifically settles in the “heartland” of America and establishes a libertarian Utopia called “Independence.” The book contains all the explicit verses concerning capitalism that Beckites thought were in the Bible and Book of Mormon, but on second look must have been part of the “plain and precious truths” removed.

The Quorum of the 12 will launch Twitter accounts for the first time, which reportedly produce bitter acrimony among some of the 12 after Elder Jeffrey R. Holland amasses approximately 20 times more followers than any of the others. Elder Holland’s Twitter account response: “One miracle at a time, brethren. #winning”

BBC America launches a hoity toity new soapy period drama titled “Beehive House,” in which Brigham’s wives and children lurk in hallways eavesdropping and conspiring against each other. Plotlines include Brigham losing all the Church’s money on a bad railroad investment, one of the men of the household being sent to prison as a polyg, the youngest daughter running away to marry a Gentile, and Brother Matthew finally marrying three of Brigham’s daughters.

After conscientiously listening to every sermon at general conference, a man is inspired to repent. He confesses to his bishop that whiskey was swallowed, fornication was enjoyed, and money was embezzled.

Prophetic insights. But through the spirit of speculation may I propose one more?

In response to the main-stream media misstating the church’s position on an issue, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will issue a carefully worded statement that will clarify the church’s position on that issue. Despite this statement we sill won’t know what the church’s position is.

@29…In response to this, certain members of the Mormon blogging community will insist that the Church’s position on its naming conventions has ALWAYS been clear, dating from a 1916 statement that carefully lays everything out. Furthermore, there are dozens of general authority quotes on the issue, as well as church magazines and manuals that will be exhaustively laid out, quote by quote. When others point out that the Church’s historical position is demonstrably filled with ambiguity, especially in the last decade, the response will be even more quotes from sources of dubious canonical value made to argue that the church’s position is, in fact unambiguous. Neither side will gain anything from any of this.

Relative to Prophecy #6, I had a dream last night that R. Gary (of NDBP fame) moved into the same ward as Steven P. (of BCC fame) and R. Gary was called as bishop. R. Gary then had it revealed to him to call Steven P. as his counselor, along with Ralph Hancock, who also lived in that ward. In the dream, it felt like they were all getting along so well that one of them were then called to be in the stake presidency as counselors under Sen. Harry Reid, who had moved into their stake and was called as stake president. I don’t remember if they were all 3 counselors or what, but it was such a great feeling that they could all get along. Really, this was my dream last night. NO JK or anything.

#24: Elder Holland’s leading margin will evaporate when the manager of President Uchtdorf’s Twitter account discovers that he has misspelled his last name and corrects the error.

#25: BYU’s Divine Comedy attempts a staging of “Beehive House.” The show is wildly popular, but members of the Religion Department persuade the group to remove the content from YouTube, counseling them that “Some things that are funny are not very useful.”

Kulturblog

Time to update Susan’s post from August of 07. “They say that these are not the best of times, But they’re the only times I’ve ever known. And I believe there is a time for meditation In cathedrals of our own.” -Billy Joel, Summer Highland Falls

NOTE: This is an essay I wrote as an undergraduate at the University of Utah almost thirty years ago. I am republishing it here as a remembrance of my favorite professor, Mark Strand, upon the occasion of his passing. Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live… […]